whiterabbit

My name is Jim Chu and I have been in the bar and restaurant industry for fifteen years. When I got out of college, all I wanted was get a bartending job so that I could act. Looking back on it, it is not surprising that I couldn't get a job - I was not even 21, and I had no experience. I have since had the priviliedge to see myself walk in the door - no wonder I was never given a job. I often turn down applicants with no experience. Having been there, I do it with a little more compassion, and with some helpful suggestions on getting that experience before continuing to beat the pavement to no avail.

Fraught with frustration and emboldened by my best friend/arch enemy Johnnie Walker, I announced to my friends that I would open my own place, a proclamation that was received with jeers, a spit-take, and at least one friend laughing himself into tears. That was it. I had to do it.

I opened ST Bar in 1992, a hangout for the locals back before they were transient trust fund babies. My regulars were the derelicts of many a restaurant in manhattan kitchen and front of house, the jazz bands that played there, and even a few that could scrape up the $40 it took to get a meal in a half decent restaurant (remember 1992?) In 1994 I opened a place called Den of Thieves, which became Idlewild, and is currently White Rabbit (I open places I like, but then I get bored of them as I get older) I built a restaurant called Torch where Libation now stands. I went from having no partners to one, then two, then twenty investors. I am back to having a simple little bar, with a grill and a fryer which sustains itself so I can play with hot oil and smoke.

What started as a career basically formed out of spite turned out to be a wonderful adventure. Full of pain, sorrow, joy, despair, fear, pride, and indigestion, I find myself missing the camraderie and head butting of working with partners, and the exchange of ideas about food and drink, love and hate, from those that know it best. So I read in your forums from time to time, like a conversation I want to jump into, but find myself mute.

I only hope that I can contribute a little bit back to the what I have already gleaned.